A nationwide audit of all Department of Veterans Affair’s facilities that resulted in three Eastern North Carolina sites being flagged for formal investigations has also necessitated a visit from the VA’s acting secretary.

A nationwide audit of all Department of Veterans Affair’s facilities that resulted in three Eastern North Carolina sites being flagged for formal investigations has also necessitated a visit from the VA’s acting secretary.

An audit report by the VA’s Office of the Inspector General stated that VA facilities in Jacksonville, Wilmington and Fayetteville need a more thorough investigation and noted that Fayetteville has some of the worst patient wait times in the country. VA’s acting secretary, Sloan Gibson, will visit Fayetteville today to meet with hospital leadership and employees, veteran service organizations, elected state officials and media, according to a Fayetteville VA press release distributed on Wednesday.

“While (the Veterans Health Administration) must assess and learn from the Access Audit, we are immediately redoubling our efforts to quickly address delays in veterans’ health care,” the report reads. “VHA is identifying where veterans are waiting for care and ensuring that timely, quality care is made available as quickly as possible.”

The report does not include any site-specific information for the Jacksonville or Wilmington facilities. On Tuesday, The Daily News submitted a request to Jeffery Melvin, the public affairs officer for the Fayetteville VA Medical Center, for that information. Melvin responded on Wednesday morning and said that he was “swamped” and would not have time to provide the requested information for “a couple days” due to the acting secretary’s visit and because he is a “one-person public affairs shop.”

The report does, however, contain site-specific information for the Fayetteville center including that 47,447 appointments were scheduled; that they received 2,144 new enrollee appointment requests; and average wait times for primary, specialty and mental health care for new patients were 83.29, 62.05 and 27.4 days, respectively. Established patients requesting the same care waited 29.54, 10.26 and 2.75 days, respectively.

At Fayetteville, 17 percent of appointments were scheduled more than 30 days from the date of request. The Durham VA Medical Center has the second highest percentage in North Carolina at 5 percent.

System-wide findings listed in the report included confusion among scheduling clerks due to complicated scheduling processes, an unattainable and inconsistently deployed 14-day wait-time target for new appointments, instructions by supervisors reported by 13 percent of schedulers to enter incorrect dates and improper wait list alternatives used by 8 percent of schedulers.

The report lists “immediate actions” that the VA is taking such as contacting more than 90,000 veterans currently waiting for health care services, suspending all VHA Senior Executive Performance Awards for the 2014 fiscal year and removing the 14-day performance goal from employee training plans. VHA will also revise, enhance and deploy scheduling training as well as implement a site inspection process.

“On May 15, 2014, VHA had over 6 million appointments scheduled across the nation,” reads the report. “VA is moving aggressively to contact these veterans through the Accelerated Access to Care Initiative.”

Under the “Accelerating Access to Care Initiative,” the VHA will provide veterans who do not currently have an appointment or are waiting for additional care or services longer than 30 days the option to be rescheduled sooner pending availability at a VA facility. Veterans will also be afforded the opportunity to keep their scheduled appointment, or be referred to non-VA medical providers in their community.

Page 2 of 2 - “VHA is committed to a renewed and aggressive preparation, teaching, training and coaching of our employees,” reads the report. “Throughout the immediate and long term, we will emphasize accountability, and ensure managers and staff engaging in inappropriate practices are held accountable.”

Remedies to accomplish immediate and long term goals, according to the report, will include an overhaul to the scheduling and access management directive, rolling out changes to the legacy scheduling system, acquiring and deploying scheduling software solutions, establishing access timeliness goals and strengthening accountability for integrity in scheduling and access management.

Among the House and the Senate, numerous bills have been voted on to fix the current situation in the VA, which now affects VA facilities across the entire United States, according to VA documents. On Wednesday, the Veterans Access to Care Through Choice, Accountability and Transparency Act was being voted on in the Senate. The act, which Sen. Kay Hagan, D-NC, cosponsored, was the result of a bipartisan compromise in the Senate, according to Amber Moon, the communications director for Hagan.

The bill, which would need to be voted into law if passed, would increase the VA secretary’s authority to remove officials who display poor performance as well as expedite the hiring of health providers in locations and departments they are needed most. The bill would also require reports of current wait times to be published on the VA’s website to better promote transparency.

On Tuesday, Congressman Walter Jones, R-NC, joined the House of Representatives in passing the Veteran Access to Care Act, a bill that he cosponsored. The bill would mandate that veterans who live more than 40 miles from a VA facility or have waited longer than a wait-time goal, which has yet to be established, will be authorized to seek care at a non-VA facility. Non-VA medical providers would be reimbursed at the highest rate when compared to government health care programs such as Medicare under the bill.

Earlier on Monday, the Demanding Accountability of Veterans Act, which Jones also cosponsored, was passed by the House of Representatives. The bill, if made into law, would require the OIG to report to Congress and the secretary of the VA if the VA does not respond properly to the OIG report.

The bill would also require the secretary to notify and provide necessary resources to managers so they can resolve issues outlined in the report. The names of the managers must also be provided to the OIG. Jones hopes that by increasing accountability and oversight at the VA it will help ensure the issues within the VA are remedied as quickly as possible, according to a press release distributed on Tuesday.

Jones and Hagan will both be unable to attend Gibson’s visit to the Fayetteville VA Medical Center due to prior obligations in Washington D.C., according to their respective press secretaries.